


i am not the ghost you want of me

by mackdizzy



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Book: It Devours!, Brainwashing, Carlos in the Desert Otherworld, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss, POV Second Person, Re-Education, Scars, Second Person, Spoilers for It Devours, The Desert Otherworld (Welcome to Night Vale), and ALLLLLLLL THE SHIT THAT GOES ALONG WITH IT., everyones ok in the end i swear, idk are these applicable tags, im SORRY YALL its the homestuck in me, its hurt COMFORT., like aftermath of torture yknow!!! fun stuff., more specifically That One Part of it devours that's basically it., not spoiler free
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24868585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mackdizzy/pseuds/mackdizzy
Summary: though I've never been through hell like that //i've closed enough windows to know you can never look backcarlos and cecil have never been experts at healing, on their own. The good news is, they're not on their own anymore.[IT DEVOURS SPOILERS/NOT SPOILER FREE]
Relationships: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	i am not the ghost you want of me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prioriteas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prioriteas/gifts).



> For @prioriteas. i dragged you back into GF and you did visa versa for me and your little town of nightvale, so I owe you this, at the very least. 
> 
> I have RELUCTANTLY rated this T instead of M, but please know that, if just briefly, it gets dark. There's dark topics with realistic aftereffects contained in this fic, so please head the trigger warnings in the tags. 
> 
> For the billionth time, this is NOT SPOILER FREE. It covers both the Desert Otherworld Plot and It Devours canon, specifically, That One Part. If you know the part, you know the part. If you don't, tread with caution!
> 
> This is in second person, which I truly am sorry for, but it is my devout favorite tense, so y'all gonna deal with it. POV changes with text formatting and line breaks! Regular text reads from Carlos's POV, italics from Cecil's.
> 
> title and description, and I'm SO SORRY for this one hun, are from fun's Carry On.
> 
> SORRY FOR TAKING SO LONG, EVERYONE! :(. CHAPTER 6 OF DFHE IS THE NEXT THING GOING UP.

The first time it happened, it was Abby who called you.

The first time it happened, it was a Saturday. June 22nd, 2013. Your evening off--Cecil’s too, usually, hence the time for a trip to Arby’s that had occurred one week previous. 

The first time it happened, you didn’t know anything was wrong. You weren’t living with Cecil, back then. You weren’t the type to be clingy, physically _or_ emotionally. Cecil liked to call, and _oh_ did he call, but when he didn’t call, you left him that. That was why you didn’t know, or at the very least, didn’t assume.

The first time it happened, there was no radio broadcast, which was unusual early Saturday afternoons. You almost called, but you didn’t.

You didn’t call.

You didn’t call because you weren’t in the habit of obsessively checking the station, these days, and if anyone were to tell you there hadn’t been a broadcast in four days, in fact, you simply would have chalked it up to Night Vale’s residents being themselves.

This was true, in a way. But not the way you’d expect.

* * *

  
  


_The first time it happened, it was three in the morning._

_The first time it happened it was a Saturday. June 18th, 2015. Not, for the record, your evening off, but it was Carlos’s. This still didn’t prevent the need to get things organized around the station (you just couldn’t_ _stand_ _mess), not to mention feeding Khoshekh, so by the time you got home, it was quite late, and you slunk off to bed, the events of the past few days slipping your mind heavy with fatigue._

_The first time it happened, you hadn’t known there was anything wrong. You hadn’t seen Carlos in over a year; you thought you knew the way he worked like the back of your hand, but apparently, you knew nothing at all._

_The first time it happened you were awoken at three in the morning by a scuffling in the kitchen. Figuring, or maybe hoping, it was friendly mice or the secret police, you rolled back over and shoved your face in the pillow until it became too loud to bear, in which you slipped on your socks, made your way down the stairs, and watched, powerless, as the mug of Carlos’s coffee you were bringing back to the sink shattered on the linoleum below._

* * *

The first time it happened, it hadn’t been that severe. Not really. _Cecil’s alright,_ Abby reassured before anything else. _He’s staying with us for a few days. Everything will be back to normal in no time at all, I promise._

The first time it happened, you didn’t worry much. A little, sure—you sent flowers to his apartment, and you missed those nightly radio broadcasts like nothing else—but nothing crazy. He was in the hands of his family, after all, and that was important. By the time the show was back on the air, he seemed chipper and excitable, which was—well, he seemed even more excitable than usual, which was odd, but comforting nonetheless. You went on another date that night, and Cecil oddly enough couldn’t quite remember the way to Arby’s, but you helped, because helping is what you do, and it went wonderfully, all things considered.

You didn’t really understand it. Not the first time it happened.

* * *

_The first time it happened, it had been concerning, but once again not severe. “Why did you do it?” You asked gently, referring of course to the halo of his own hair on the kitchen floor, which he had been messily cutting curls off of with a pair of kitchen scissors, his hair now barely the length it was when you met him—not at all long enough to be braided, like you had done the first night back._

_“I couldn’t.” Carlos muttered, slamming the scissors down on the kitchen counter and pushing past you. “Cecil, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t—I couldn’t.” And then he wrapped his arms tight around you and buried his head in your shoulder, which was so uncharacteristic you jumped a foot into the air. But this was Carlos, who you loved, so you hugged back, even if you didn’t understand it._

_You didn’t understand it, the first time it happened._

* * *

Then came the second time it happened, then the third time, then the fourth. The fourth time you went to Abby’s house three days after the fact, your heart sitting easy and relieved when Cecil knew who you were on sight. You spent the rest of the day talking, slow and steady, and tried your best to learn how to navigate the situation.

You got used to it. Slowly, you got used to it. It wasn’t easy, but you did it anyway, because it was the only way to survive.

It never happened to you. Not since you moved here, not any time after. Something about the protections Cecil couldn’t extend to himself were granted to you. It made you feel guilty, immensely so, but you would be lying if you didn’t admit there was a part of you that was relieved, too. 

You learned how to do it. _You’ve done enough._ You said the fifth time around on Abby’s doorstep, trying to ignore the muffled sound of your boyfriend’s tears from the other room. _I’ll take him from here, okay?_ You got good at pretending that was why you did it—as a favor to his family. Not because you were so intensely attached that the thought of him hurting buried inside you like a knife. Not because you loved him more than you’d ever loved anyone. Not because you couldn’t be apart at a time like this. Not because he was peaceful as a baby sleeping in your bed with a rag over his forehead, and you couldn’t imagine him doing it anywhere else at all.

* * *

_It happened more than once. Maybe you weren’t expecting it to, but it did. Not the hair cutting, obviously, but Carlos. He had…he had_ _moments._ _He grew reclusive and moody, or distant and aimless, or he cried, or he demanded physical closeness, which was the strangest of all. You got used to it, and you learned how to handle it; you would make soup, which was about the only thing you were good at, or coffee, which you could manage okay, and let him get it all out._

_You still didn’t really understand it, since it never happened to you, and since he had called you something like_ _every day,_ _but you suppose a year in that place must be quite lonely, so you tried your hardest. That was all you could do, a lot of the time._

_You, on the other hand, had absolutely no problem admitted to yourself why you did it. You did it because you love Carlos, and you loved Carlos since the moment you laid eyes on him at city hall, and you will always love Carlos, your Carlos. You would walk through hell and back for your Carlos just as he did for you, without a moment’s hesitation._

* * *

It’s happening. 

You know it’s happening because you’re awoken at two AM by the phone ringing on the end table, and Cecil hasn’t been seen for four days, and though you’ve worked through variables in your head, you know, you really do know. It is Cecil’s voice on the other hand, and this is the first time _this_ has happened; it is the first time he has called you himself.

“Carlos?”

Cecil’s voice sounds--well, it sounds _small._ Cecil’s beautiful voice, which can do anything, be anything, and holds all the power and grandeur of the entire town in its tiny voicebox, feels small and dry, like someone sucked all the power out of it. You’ve never heard him like this. He’s never called you first, and it’s carving a hole in your insides. “Yes, it’s me.” You respond, twirling the cord around your finger in nervousness. “I’ll come get you. Where are you?”

“I don’t know.” His voice breaks around the edges, like this is something to be ashamed of, and you chide yourself for it. Of course he doesn’t know, Carlos. “Is it--Marble, everywhere? Tulips in the garden?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, okay.” You push your curls out of your eyes again--you need a haircut. You can’t stand it when they get too long. “Okay, I’m coming. Stay put.”

Cecil looks just as lost as he sounded, when you find him. You approach him slowly, the way you might a cornered animal, hands in the air. “Do you--know who I am?” You ask very gently, and he nods, holding his arms close to his chest. “Good.” You reassure softly, shoulders relaxing. You’ve never gone through it before where he _didn’t,_ and you hope you never will. “Come on, Ceec. We’re getting you home.”

You live together, now, of course (you are married, after all), so this next part is easier. You put a pot of soup on, because it’s easy, and it’s fast, and it’s hot, and Cecil likes it, and a pot of coffee, because it’s going to be a long night. At least tonight, you realize, Cecil won’t argue with you about how he “likes his coffee black”, and this thought shouldn’t make you happy in any way shape or form, but it does help you relax. Just a little. You bring it all out to him and sit on the couch, your legs crossed at the ankles.

“Thank you.” He mumbles softly, digging into his food. The silence is consuming, and chokes you out. You wonder how far you’ll have to start, how far back you’ll have to begin, and you place both hands over your mouth and ruminate on this until he’s done eating. Cecil doesn’t seem too talkative, though, simply curling his legs underneath him and staring at the back wall. _What do you remember_ is what you _want_ to ask, but your plain old curiosity gets in the way of what is right sometimes, and you shove it down. “What do you need, Cecil?”

“Think I...just need sleep.” He mumbles, and you stand. 

“Sleep it is. Come on.” You help him to his feet and realize, then, that he is almost unbearably warm, and then you wonder if he is _hurt._ You know he has scars--you know that they layer over top of themselves--but Cecil says only Abby has seen them.

Cecil didn’t call Abby, this time around.

You promise yourself you’ll worry about that tomorrow and walk him upstairs, tucking him into bed. You want to laugh and make a joke about him hogging the bed, but Cecil is looking at you like he’s never seen this bed (a bed) in his life, so you decide to skip it. You don’t decide to deal with his bed-hogginess first hand anyway, choosing instead to down about six more cups of coffee and sit on the edge of the bed, watching him, checking his pulse every ten minutes to make sure he has one in the first place. 

You thought you were used to it. You thought you were ready for it. You thought you knew what to do. 

You don’t know _what to do._ Not at all.

* * *

_It’s happening again._

_You’ve been home with Carlos for five days, now. This is your home. You’re not sure whether or not you convinced yourself of that or whether you truly remembered it, but you know you believe it. You haven’t doubted that this was your town since “the indecent” (that’s what you’re calling it), but you know now so much more than that. This is your home and this is where you belong, right here, with Carlos._

_Carlos is crying._

_You hate seeing him cry. Like a phantom, something suddenly tells you he doesn’t do it often, though he has done in multiple times in the past five days; when you sat bolt upright in the middle of the night the first night and swore to him you were drowning, even though you’ve never been to a lake or an ocean. The time you thought he didn’t see you, when you saw your niece for what felt like the first time, but you saw him, and you all cried, even Steve. The time he showed you he_ _had_ _to see if you didn’t want him to take you to a hospital, and he traced the little lightning-bolt fractals on your arms with tears misting his glasses for an hour. Tonight, at dinner, when you suddenly dropped your fork to the ground and asked him if you had a cat._

_Carlos is crying because you just told him that you missed him. And he had said, “Of course, Cecil. I missed you too, so much. I miss you so much every time this happens.” And then you had said, “No, not this week. The other time.”_

_You know about the other time. You know all about the other time, even though you don’t know what you had for dinner last week. You know about the whole year, about fear and worry and heartbreak, and you know about feeling so stifled by him, and how it feels now, to be so lost, and how stifled_ _you_ _must have made_ _him._ _This isn’t quite the apology it should be, but it’s a start._

_“Why that?” Your perfect husband groans. “Of all the things to remember so soon.”_

_“I don’t know.” You whisper softly, staring at the wall ahead. “I think it’s important. Very important. More important than the little things.”_

_“Yeah, well, maybe you’re the lucky one, to not remember it.”_

_Silence._

_“I’m sorry, Cecil, oh my god, that was awful. I never should’ve said th--”_

_“There’s something you aren’t telling me.”_

_More silence._

_“...What?”_

_“I don’t know a lot of things right now, Carlos.” Your voice sounds careful, measured, calculated. Not like it usually is, but you can hardly control it. “But I know you better than I ever have, I think. You don’t--you never got this sad before, Carlos. I hate to see you sad.” You fold your hands on your lap. “I don’t know why you’re sad, Carlos, I just hate to see it.”_

_“I was alone for---For a year, Cecil. I was very lonely, and very scared, and I missed you a lot. And I’m still not over it. Okay? That’s all, Ceec, I promise.”_

_He looks at you, searching for some need on your face, and then leans closer, and you pull back, alarmed, because when this happens, sometimes, Carlos needs this, but right now, he doesn’t. Right now he is making sacrifices he doesn't have to. “I’m alright, Carlos.” You insist, holding your hands up gently._

_“We have a chance, though, Cecil! We can make things so much better.”_

_“Not this way, Carlos. Please don’t give yourself up for me.” You’d be lying if you said he didn’t have a point, though, and you consider his words. “That doesn’t mean you’re...entirely wrong, though.” You laugh, because Carlos is never entirely wrong. “We do have a do-over. If you want one.”_

_“I don’t know, Cecil. It feels wrong to me, rewriting our past.”_

_“Hey, I’d let_ _you_ _re-educate me anyday.” You joke through the pain, and Carlos sees through the bullshit masked as a joke and scowls, so you fold your hands in your lap. “I never said we had to rewrite anything. Maybe just...tell it to me better, this time around.”_

_“How long have you known?”_

_You laugh, genuinely. “Carlos...I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know if that’s_ _this_ _talking, or...just a premonition.”_

_Carlos turns to face you, sighing. “It seems no matter how little I tell you, you end up knowing everything about me anyway, huh.”_

_“I have natural charm.”_

_This is not the first time Carlos has decided to hold you, in times like these, his tears still drying, but you feel it more genuinely. And you feel that tonight, there’s going to be a first time still to come._


End file.
